


My Phantom's Wish

by hypnoidvoid



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Headcanon, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, Mentioned Pennywise (IT), Spooky, ghost bill denbrough, i realize this is not going to get a lot of hits, its cool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-29 12:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16263875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypnoidvoid/pseuds/hypnoidvoid
Summary: The Loser's Club doesn't defeat Pennywise in 1985, all perishing. In 2012, twenty-seven years post the Loser's Club second attempt to kill Pennywise, It comes back to wreak more havoc after its long rest. A ghost 'haunts' a twelve year old boy named Freddie Holtz. All the ghost ever wanted was to be a good brother, one that could protect and keep others that he cared about out of harm's way. Perhaps, he can help Freddie avoid the same fate.





	My Phantom's Wish

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are no ships here, but I hope you guys enjoy my ghost story au that was inspired by an unfinished drawing of @liliemm's on tumblr! Happy spooky day, creeps~

[October, 2012] 

 

Flickers of newly awakened street lamps illuminated in a doubled runway to light Jackson Street. The sun finally closed its eyes to surrender to its temporary slumber, allowing the full moon to rise and surveil her darkened territory. Autumn mist collected on the trims of roof platelets, dripping along the sides and pooling at the front of porches in between wooden panels.

 

Drip. _Drip_. Drip. _Drip_.

 

A howling wind blew from the east, a pounding rain threatened from the west. Fog viscous enough to touch flooded every street of Derry, Maine at this hour. It was like running through spider webs with silk composed of water.

 

Children from every block were hurriedly ushered in to avoid chill ridden illnesses, fathers and mothers alike, because with the sun down, the moon was no favored supervisor. She often played deceitful tricks to your eye that may lead you down dangerous cobbled paths, that perhaps, you shouldn’t be following. Casted shadows that may be your own, may be another’s. The moon was just another pale enchantress, like so many were.  

 

However, one child giddily remained about. Freddie Holtz was far from home, his mother’s shouting distance, his rambunctious gaggle of friends— everything. And he was entirely alone.

 

Well, _almost_ alone.

 

He happily bounced between muddied puddles of cracked asphalt. _Splashing. Kicking. Sliding_. _Laughing_. In those spaces that the city workers were all too lazy to fill and the neighborhood dwellers took no interest in taking time to make complaints about, these potholes’ sole purpose was to fill with water during rain surges, and to be played in. Vicious vagaries of water could bound corners and some child would still be carelessly at ease in its chaos. Because they were a child. Children inherently love chaos, even if they can’t detect that it’s initially treacherous.

 

What else was a child to do, than play?

 

_“Oranges and lemons,_

_Say the bells of Saint Clement’s.”_

 

“Hwah..?” Freddie blurted as he tripped over an untied shoelace and slipped face first into the ground, cracking the right lens of his glasses. Dark auburn hair hung damply over rattled teal eyes, his palms stinging, now scuffed with blood. He heard a faint choir of children's voices, and yet there was nothing except rows of cookie cutter houses and eerie empty street to meet his gaze. A normal sight, but the air was foreign; diluted. The neighborhood looked like home, the lawn ornaments were in place and cars were parked in driveways where they should be, but the stench told another tale.

 

The voices he heard grew deeper, less harmonized. Their pitch was far from sweet and instead became synonymous with verbalized white noise.

 

_“You owe me five farthings,_

_Say the bells of Saint Martin’s.”_

 

Getting back on his feet and wiping droplets of rain off his bifocals, the unsettled twelve year old slowly shifted along an internal compass to squint suspicious pupils at an overflowing sewer drain. It appeared harmless at first glance, inconspicuous among the other sewer drains that looked identical down the street, but this one caught his attention.  

 

His eyes were sharp, keen, and severely cautious as he crept closer.

 

_“When will you pay me,_

_Say the bells of Old Bailey.”_

 

 _It’s s-safer with your f-friends Freddie, go home f-f-for now,_ a familiar voice spoke in his head.

 

Freddie couldn’t match it to a specific person that he personally knew, but he trusted this voice regardless. Deep yet raspy, firm but gentle, and even with the slight stutter it tended to feed him detailed advice that often proved to be wise. It was as if this voice had walked in his shoes, biked down the same roads, asked the same questions and stumbled upon their answers. This unseen man speaking to him seemed to know more about Freddie’s life than Freddie did.

 

It was a voice he had been solely hearing since June of this year. At first, he thought it may have been friends whispering to him when his back had been turned to goof him up. But when he’d finally brought the subject up jokingly, they thought Freddie was the one goofing. In hopes of not looking like a loony schizo, he chose to play it off. Ain’t _no_ way he was goofed up. He _was_ goofing, yes, and the more he told himself that, the less peculiar the voice became to him.

 

_I w-w-wouldn’t go into th-thu-that house if I were you. Not yet, anyway._

 

_C-cool it kid! You’re going to n-n-need that bike, oil it when y-you get home._

 

_If y-yuh-you take that shortcut, you’ll get there qui-quicker._

 

_You were l-luh-lucky this time, take a friend next time, w-will ya?_

 

_Dumbass. Pick that b-back up._

 

Most of the time Freddie listened to the voice. But like every unruly twelve year old boy, he could be indignant and impulsively defiant. So, he cautiously approached the sewer drain that had ceased to overflow since the last time he looked at it. The bulge of water was well below the brink of the drain, circulating deep inside the sewer channel of sludge.

 

The children's voices gained volume to ring in his ears alongside the man’s warnings.

 

_“When I grow rich,_

_Say the bells at Shoreditch.”_

 

_Don’t F-Freddie. Listen to me on this one k-k-kid, not that fuckin’ s-suh-song._

 

Freddie grumbled to himself as he dragged his rain soaked sneakers forward, “Yeah yeah, it’s a bad idea, _whatever_ man.”

 

 _You don’t u-u-understand yet, but you will. I’m trying to do you a b-big favor here, so park your ass right where it is, and g-g-g-go the other way,_ the voice advised, chains ringing as it spoke.

 

Aromas of caramel corn, cotton candy, bubblegum, shelled peanuts, lit sparklers, stretched rubber of blown up balloons hit his nostrils. His eyelids fluttered shut instinctively. The sensation drew him closer to the drain, close enough to want to bend down. Sniff _closer_. Slip _inside_ , fall _in_.

 

Swim, _float_.

 

But he didn’t. An invisible fist tugged his collar, ghosted fingers peeling him away and encouraging him to reel back.

 

_“When will that be?_

_Say the bells of Stepney.”_

 

 _Go home Freddie_ , the man’s voice sullenly demanded without a stutter this time. Freddie felt a pat on his head and push to the middle of his spine. One that a concerned older brother would do.

 

_O-Off you go now._

 

With one last sniff of the supposed carnival luxuries, the scents quickly turned dreadfully rotten. The caramel corn went stale, he could taste the molded cotton candy in his mouth, all the circus scents melded together to collectively reek of sun bathed roadkill. He was thankful for the unseen hand knocking his brain into a sensible state.

 

It was a sewer drain! Crawling into that thing is fucking gross! Yack!

 

_“I do not know,_

_Says the great bell at Bow."_

 

Freddie ravenously shook his head and hummed to himself as he skipped home for distraction, unaware of the sharpened claws that had hungrily reached out from the drain, inches from the heel of his left sneaker as he turned away. Close, _too close_.

 

The phantomed voice burdened by chains followed in Freddie’s wake as he headed home. He sighed in relief after scowling menacingly at the drain. Freddie might not be able to see him, but another creature would.

 

 _Not again, never again. You won’t get him, you hear me? I’ll make sure of it,_ the voice territorially threatened, this time amplifying his promise to the entity in the drain rather than Freddie’s brainwaves.

 

There was a gnashing of teeth and gurgling of bubbles from a submerging shadow before the sewer drain resumed to overflow.

 

_“Here comes a candle to light you to bed,_

_And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!_

_Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead.”_

 

* * *

 

“Ma! The street smelled like frickin’ carnival shizz toda-”

 

His mother hastily whisked to the front door to scoop her son into a hug, “Freddie, where the fu- _heck_ , have you been? You know there have been children, _people_ missing, how could you be out there by yourself at this time of night? You have your cellphone on you, you didn’t even care to pick up my messages? What the hell were you thinking?”

 

Freddie nonchalantly picked his iPhone out of his bright yellow hoodie as his mother shrieked to check for missed calls. As he unlocked the front screen, they came flooding in faster than the rain was falling. As shitty as Derry was, the cell service was always exceptional. Small town, many reception towers— there were no dead zones. No excuses. Even if you were camping.

 

Confused, he began to apologize to his wigged hen of a mother, “Sorry, I-I guess my volume was low, er, summthin’.”  

 

 _That’s not why you didn’t hear them,_ the voice spoke in his head, lightly chuckling.

 

His mother continued, “I’m just glad you’re here and saf-”

 

“ _Shut up_ ,” Freddie snarked under his breath to the voice.

 

“Excuse me? Frederick-” His mother angrily retaliated.

 

“Shit,” he mouthed, pinching his face and clenching his hands together. What was he going to do, tell his mother a stuttering man talks to him through his subconscious? Absolutely _fucking_ not.

 

He booked it upstairs, drowning out his mother’s pleas and leaving a trail of wet footprints across their white carpet. If he wasn’t going to get his ass kicked for the missed calls, he was definitely going to get verbally whooped for those footprints. He roughly shoved his door open and slammed it behind him in between hoarse breaths and shut eyes.  

 

_Y-Your room isn’t as s-suh-safe as it was before Freddie, b-be careful._

 

“Shut up, shut up, _shut up_!” Freddie whimpered with eyes still closed. Anxiously cracking his lids ajar, he once again speculated if the voice was right.

 

In the center of his room, a red balloon stilly floated— still as a granite mannequin.

 

The draft from the heater had no effect on the string descending down from the balloon; it was frozen in place. Walking in a circle around the balloon, Freddie analyzed it from its top to its bottom. His thoughts went terribly fuzzy the closer he stepped to the balloon. Reaching out a hand to poke the red plastic, it hissed. The animalistic sound made the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand up.

 

“What the-” Freddie whispered after his jolted recoil. The string that had previously been suspended in gravity elongated and shot towards him to wrap around his forearm then upper bicep, tightening its hold to be frighteningly snug enough to cut circulation off.

 

He let out a croaked scream. A scream unfortunately no one, no one _alive_ , would hear.

 

The string bulged, filling wider and becoming flesh instead of plastic, developing a triangular head that neared close to his face. Diamonds raced down its scaly spine, a rattle shaking inside the bulb of the red balloon. Orange eyes split with narrow slits lit up the dark room like cursed nightlights. _Deadlights_.

 

They were focused on Freddie, and Freddie only. And if eyes could smile, these eyes were maliciously grinning with a feral bloodlust at a vulnerable kill within reach.

 

Its jowls stretched a foot long, a sopping split tongue breached the floor, and matching fangs dripping with venom from both the roof and the bottom jaw was within seconds of enveloping Freddie’s skull. As the snake coiled and prepared to strike, the balloon popped. The pop echoed in the room, throughout Freddie’s house, down the street, and possibly all over town. But with the pop, gone was the snake.

 

Shaking, Freddie dropped to his knees and blankly trembled. Tears brimmed his eyelashes, only seconds from spilling completely.

 

 _Y-You’re welcome_ , the voice reverberated as loose metal chains drug along the carpet.

 

“You, you did that?” The frightened tween squeaked out from the ground, looking around his room for someone he couldn’t see. His breath became strangulatingly hindered to the point of a panicked asthma attack when he didn’t even have asthma.

 

_I’m h-h-here to help with whuh-what I can. I couldn’t do it for my own, but I want to help you._

 

“What do you mea-”

 

_Y-You don’t like snakes do y-y-ya Freddie?_

 

“No, I’m friggin’ terrified of them…” Freddie weakly responded, pulling himself off the floor and onto his bed. Wet clothes and all. He curled up in the fetal position and kept his cracked glasses on in case he needed to bolt from his room. His safe space didn’t feel safe. Not anymore.

 

 _Y’know ya remind me a l-luh-lot of my little brother. A-Adventurous. Curious. In-I-Innocent,_ the man’s voice mournfully reminisced. His chains rattled to the foot of Freddie’s bed, halting when a weight plopped down on the edge. There was no visible person, but the bed creaked with the given pressure as it plopped down.

 

“You had a brother?” This time Freddie spoke in his head, hoping the voice could communicate without him having to use his vocal chords. He closed his eyes, shutting out his scenery from any further potential mayhem.

 

_I d-d-did. Once._

 

“Wha’ happened?”

 

_What would have h-huh-happened to you. B-But this time, I was there. As I should have b-b-been the first time._

 

With eyes still shut, Freddie felt his comforter gently being lifted over him. It was dreadfully cold, but he welcomed it as it stopped his shaking. It was called a comforter for a reason after all. Freddie huddled with appreciation and cracked opened an eye in hopes he would see the being that had been shadowing him. Alas, there was no one. Just a cold breeze, and the echo of chains.

 

The phantom undetectably smiled to himself, meekly satisfied with being a replacement protector for someone. Something he wish he could have done for his little brother so many years ago.

 

All he wanted really was to be a good, _decent_ , big brother.

 

But for Freddie, reality felt as if it was slipping away. Was he crazy? Was this voice fabricated after a loose bolt unscrewed from the back of his brainstem? He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating, dreaming, falling through the cracks of what was tangible, or actually seeing this shit. Somewhere deep inside of him he hoped he was losing it. If this was real, nonsensical perversions from the _Twilight Zone_ were crawling out from the rip in time and space, purging on his life.

 

Before falling into exhausted unconsciousness, his bedside lamp switched on. It could only be turned on by the knob on the wall on the opposite side of the room. The room remained empty, however.

 

Rubbing his eyes one last time, Freddie turned his body over to see new items placed by his bedside.

 

A table that had once been empty now supported a perfectly folded paper boat coated in wax. No one his age made paper boats anymore, let alone actually played with them. And yet at the front fold in thick black letters, “S.S. Freddie” was neatly written on the boat. It was his.

 

 _Made_ for him.

 

And underneath the boat, a torn out piece of notebook paper still desperately clinging onto its fringe stuck out. The spiraled edges frizzed and vibrated with untamed energy. It read:

 

_Freddie Holtz,_

_We’re long forgotten by the world, my seven, but the evil in your town isn’t. The same evil that took my brother’s life in 1957, me and my friends’ lives in 1985, and more to come this year. Don’t, I repeat DON’T, let yourself be one of the victims. I see in you what I saw in myself. Be the difference. Do what we couldn’t. I’ll be with you the whole way._

 

_Your Phantom,_

_-Big Bill_


End file.
